ABSTRACT
The previous chapters looked at the ways in which storytelling is co-creative and political. Following Hannah Arent’s teachings that private stories only take shape when they are made public, we can understand that spaces of story sharing take place within a public sphere where stories are produced dialogically. This has profound implications for the ways in which digital storytelling facilitators work with storytellers and interviewees. Considering the ways in which storymaking practices are co-created, this chapter considers how authenticity is affected by collaborative storymaking in personal narratives told through digital stories. It examines the role of identity creation in the telling of such stories and as it affects the telling and development of the story itself. It begins with a contextualization of identity development and an understanding of authenticity before considering specific implications on the genres of digital stories.
